2013 saw fewest weather disasters in recent history - but will luck hold?

The year 2013 was historically kind to the US, with tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, and other weather-related disasters occurring at near-record infrequency. Still, meteorologists say that global temperatures have continued to rise.

While there is still some time remaining on the 2013 calendar,
the SI Organization - a self-described engineering and technology
company that has worked with the US Department of Defense -
released a recent report deeming the past year as one of the
mildest in terms of devastating natural disasters.

For example, the number of wildfires that burned across the US
was on pace to be the lowest in the last 10 years. By October 16,
according to the National Interagency Fire Center, 2013 had seen
40,306 fires ravage 4,152,390 acres. That total, which accounts
for the devastating fires outside Colorado Springs that displaced
hundreds of people in June, is the lowest since 5,254,109 acres
burned in 2008.

At the same time, just two hurricanes passed through the Atlantic
Basin and both Humberto and Ingrid were Category I storms that
dissipated quickly.

“The eastern Pacific Ocean has had no major hurricanes this
season meaning there has been no major hurricane in either the
Atlantic or Pacific which only occurred one other yea in recorded
history – 1986,” meteorologist Paul Dorian wrote for the SI
Organization. “This is actually quite extraordinary since the
two basins are generally out of phase with each other (i.e. when
one is inactive the other is active).”

“Finally, another interesting stat with respect to hurricanes
has to do with the fact that we are currently in the longest
period since the Civil War Era without a major hurricane strike
in the US (i.e., category 3,4, or 5),” Dorian continued.
“The last major hurricane to strike the US was Hurricane
Wilma during late October of that record-breaking year of 2005 –
let’s hope this historic stretch continues. By the way, just as a
point of comparison, in 1954 the US was hit by three major
hurricanes in less than 10 weeks.”

But scientists say the good weather is an anomaly - not a sign of
things to come. November 2013 was the warmest November for Earth
since national records began in 1891, according to data released
by the National Climatic Data Center. The US was 0.3 degree below
its monthly average in November, but record warmth in Russia
heated much of the rest of the world.

“Most of the world’s land areas experienced
warmer-than-average monthly temperatures, including much of
Eurasia, coastal Africa, Central America and central South
America. Much of southern Russia, northwest Kazakhstan, south
India, and southern Madagascar were record warm,” the data
center reported.

In part because of that trend, 2013 is tied with 2002 as the
fourth-warmest year on record. Experts say that over the past
century, sea levels have raised around the US by nearly eight
inches.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Benjamin Horton, a
professor at Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal
Science, told USA Today. “The rate of sea-level rise could
more than triple in the next century. We’re talking about rates
we haven’t seen in 6,000 to 7,000 years.”

As such, the rarity of hurricanes has been an especially
fortunate occurrence. The US cities of Norfolk, Charleston, and
Miami – located in the states of Virginia, South Carolina, and
Florida – regularly experience flooding at lunar high tides. New
York City and New Orleans have both been crippled in recent years
by storms that brought high sea levels flooding into city
streets. In New York, work continues even now to repair the
extensive subway damage caused by 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.

The Defense Department and Army Corps of Engineers have begun
working with lawmakers in coastal cities throughout the country
to make up for the ignorance of the past.